Day 408 marked the end of our hike through Europe. 7425 kilometers on foot; walking on beaches, through forests, along dunes, on roads, close to fields, crossing villages, towns and big cities. 12 times we crossed borders of the different European countries; 7 times on foot, 3 times by boat, 2 times by bus. We… Continue Reading

Just when we thought the last days of the hike would be easy-peasy, our friend Nuno comes along and leads us through amazing trails in the Sintra hills. The 19 km we hiked together included the most beautiful sights and the most difficult descents and ascents of our trip. To be repeated – without the… Continue Reading

Moiken’s cousin Conny and her family flew in especially from sunny Berlin to spend some days in and around Santiago. Fortunately, on our 17 km hike with Conny through the beautiful hills of Galicia, we had perfect walking conditions: A bit cloudy and only some rain to cool us down in the end. Continue Reading

After our hiking week in Poland in September, Moiken’s mum joined us again in April – this time to hike along the Spanish coast, from Bilbao to Santander. She impressed us by walking 108 kilometers in five days, with a lot of ups and downs! Continue Reading

José’s little brother Jorge came to France to hike one day with us, travel to Bordeaux to celebrate José’s birthday, and hike four days more (the last one being courtesy of a general strike). We descended 109 kilometers of the coast of Gironde together, passing through pine forests and walking on long sand beaches, and… Continue Reading

An important date was approaching: José’s 40th birthday was falling right on the year of our trip. How convenient that we were not far from Bordeaux at that point, where we could meet his birthday guests and celebrate in style. José’s brother Jorge arrived from Portugal, to hike with us and spend some fun… Continue Reading

To our great joy, Anne-Marie joined us a second time – and she brought her husband Jimmy along! The four of us enjoyed two beautiful sunny days in France, suffered together when the first hike was much longer than originally planned, and celebrated our achievement of hiking a total of 50 kilometers with delicious food… Continue Reading

Just when we started to settle into the life of hiking on the Way of St. James, we had to face the question: Are you real pilgrims? Which brought us to the question: What ARE real pilgrims? We often stayed at the home of families who host pilgrims for the night, offering a dinner together, a cosy… Continue Reading

We had another two wonderful hiking weeks in Brittany, still away from the sea. There was no lack of water, however. We were following the Nantes-Brest Canal (which from our perspective should be the Brest-Nantes canal, but we can’t change the toponymy just because we were walking in the opposite direction) and all along the… Continue Reading

We had been walking closely along the coast of Brittany until the city of Brest. From there, we started following the St. James’ Way rather than the GR34/E9, in order to reach Spain within two months instead of three or more. The price we had to pay was leaving the coast, but we soon discovered… Continue Reading